This is closer to a 3.5 than a 3-star book, but just not quite enough to bump it to a 4.

Cards on the table: I love Rachel Hartman’s Goredd universe. I remember first picking up Seraphina on a whim back in late 2012 and was swept away by Hartman’s elegant prose and richly-imagined world. From the creative way in which Hartman introduced and created her dragons within the human society to the way in which she introduced and integrated Goredd’s religion and its various Saints, as well as all the way to the characters.

After all, a rich world is nothing without characters to fill it, especially characters in whom I am deeply invested. I loved Seraphina and all the other characters that circled around her, whether it be her dragon uncle, the prince, her close friend — it didn’t matter, I was invested. They were without doubt one of the strongest elements of the novel, not only due to their complexity, but in just how much I cared for them; I wanted nothing but happiness for them. It made Shadow Scale one of my most anticipated reads of 2015, and getting access to the ARC of that novel was enough to get to cancel any and all plans I had and hunker down to read the entire novel in one sitting.

So getting the chance to return to Goredd, and from a different perspective…yeah, it didn’t take much to convince me I needed to read this book.

The first thing that struck me while reading Tess of the Road is how I had completely forgotten about Seraphina’s family. I had vaguely remembered her father, but — and I’m ashamed to admit it — her stepmother, stepsisters, and stepbrothers had entirely slipped my mind. I didn’t remember them at all. Needless to say, it took me a moment to realize that Tess was, in fact, one of Seraphina’s younger stepsisters.

And, unfortunately, Tess is no Seraphina. I feel it’s unfair to say as, of course, there’s no way that Tess could be Seraphina — to start with, she’s not half-dragon — and so to compare these two protagonists is an exercise in futility. They are incredibly different from each other, which is put into even sharper relief when Seraphina herself actually shows up, more than once to my great delight. The problem with Tess is not necessarily that she’s unlikeable, but that, for me, she’s grating. At first, I couldn’t grasp how Hartman could have written a character like Tess, one who was such a drag to follow and who did nothing to either endear me to her or invest me in her journey. Of course, the entire point of Tess of the Road is that it’s more a journey of inner self-discovery and healing more than any sort of plot, so starting with Tess as she is, it’s worth it to follow her journey. I still never quite warmed to her, but I most certainly softened towards her, especially by the end when she had come to terms with herself.

Also, I just had to add: wow, I really loathed Tess’s mother (Seraphina’s stepmother). I really, truly dislike that woman.

But moving on to the plot…there isn’t much of one. That’s not necessarily to the novel’s detriment as it makes it fairly clear that this is more an inner journey of self-discovery for Tess than it is a true road-trip novel of adventures — there is a road trip, and there are adventures, but they’re not necessarily the novel’s true focus. While that certainly does drag the pacing of what I had hoped would be a faster, more “fun” novel, part of me was willing to continue powering through some of the many points where I considered pausing my reading. Of course, I know that if I pause a Goredd book and then attempt to go back to it, it’ll be a struggle, and so, rather like Tess on her Road — capitalized by our heroine herself — I continued walking on.

Ultimately, this book lacked, for me, some of the magic of what made the original Seraphina duology so wonderful and borderline mind-blowing; there was a spark that just wasn’t present, and it made Tess of the Road a far more difficult reading experience than either of its predecessors. That being said, I still think that Tess of the Road is a phenomenal story of self-discovery and learning to live with, as well as love and forgive, oneself. The raw, personal journey of Tess is one that may not always endear the reader to her, but will certainly strike home and true with more than one person.

It just takes a bit of effort to get to that point.

Tess Dombegh has always known she was bad—if her mother’s constant reminders of her sinful nature hadn’t been proof enough, her unwed pregnancy certainly was—but she’s spent the past few years trying to make up for it by looking after her twin sister and helping her find a husband. At the wedding, faced with the prospect of becoming a caretaker for her sister’s future children and being forever tied to her family, she makes a series of mistakes that have her mother threatening to send her to the nuns. Tess makes a different choice. She runs, disguising herself as a man as she begins her journey down the road. She soon crosses paths with her childhood friend Pathka, a quigutl—a dragon-like creature—who reminds her of their early obsession with the guigutl stories of the World Serpents, great creatures larger than dragons with incredible, mythic abilities. Together, they begin their search for the World Serpents, but Tess still has a lot of walking—and figuring out—to do before she’ll be ready to face the dangers and challenges of the road.

I didn’t actually realize this was a companion book to another series (Seraphina) until after I’d already started it, but I found it easy enough to keep up. Hartman does a good job of introducing the world and the characters without assuming you’ve read the other books or relying too heavily on their plot. I imagine reading the Seraphina duology would give you a deeper understanding of some of the characters and background (and Seraphina does play a role in the novel as Tess’s older sister), but it never feels like you’re diving into the middle of a series.

One of the most interesting aspects of Tess of the Road was the rich world building. Hartman has constructed a really fascinating fantasy world with dragons who are cold and analytical, quigutl, the dragon-like creatures who are generally discounted and misunderstood by both humans and their dragon cousins, and the humans who live alongside them all.

I also enjoyed Tess and Pathka—arguably the two main characters—and their unusual friendship, though both of them got on my nerves occasionally. Tess essentially came from a background of abuse (her mother used harsh religious beliefs to convince Tess she was inherently bad and worthless) and her upbringing and a series of other awful events from her teenage years which are revealed slowly throughout the course of the novel combine to give her a good deal of trauma and self-doubt / loathing. In particular, she has a lot of ingrained beliefs about the sinfulness of women and their bodies that—while I could definitely understand and relate to having grown up in the South—I also wished could’ve been addressed more head on and also contradicted more readily and frequently by other characters, if not Tess herself. Tess does mostly come to realize these teachings are wrong and misguided by the end of the book, but it took so long to get there and with so little push back against those ideas that I sometimes found that disheartening.

The book also—I must admit—seemed to drag on in places. It’s a long book, and in some ways not a lot happens. Tess has plenty of encounters on the road, but most of them aren’t really relevant to the overall plot. That's fine, of course, but sometimes it made the book feel very slow and a bit disconnected.

All in all, it was an enjoyable book, and I particularly liked the world building, but the pacing was just a difficult issue for me to get past. When a long book feels long, it’s generally not one I’m going to want to come back to.

The plot dragged at certain points and I could not finish it. Which is a sham because I loved Seraphina's story.

DNF 50%

I was a bit scared that not having read Seraphina & The Shadow Scale could affect/spoil this reading*.
I wish that were the case.
However, sadly, I hated this book for very different reasons.

➤ Tess was a huge disappointment. The prologue presents us Tess as a child and I adored her: she was a wildfire, pure energy. Comparing that little girl with Grown-Up-Tess… well, I wondered where all her sparkle went. Grown-Up-Tess took life lying down and seemed just a faded, grudging version of that little, adorable troublemaker. I never linked with her.

➤ The other characters weren't any better: Tess’s parents were detestable; a hamster has more personality than Jeanne – Tess’s twin; Seraphina was probably the most interesting one, but - seen through Tess's eyes – she did not come out very nice…

➤ The vision about women: I'm just going to be blunt, the idea that the book seems to convey is that women can be either domestic angels or whores. I guess the concept was repeated so often (through Tess’ mother’s bitter reprimands, through St. Vitt’- “the most implacable and unsympathetic Saint in Heaven” - sanctimonious wisdom, through Tess’ tantrums), I nearly started believing it myself.

➤ The pace was pretty slow and the overall plot just seemed to me completely pointless and inconclusive. Most of the time I simply had no idea where the Author was going with this.

➤The consequence was that I was mortally bored. Eventually, I threw in the towel and decided to give up.

* In retrospect, I'd suggest to read them first, because there are plenty of references to Seraphina's world and myths - and Seraphina herself pops up here and there.

Tess has always been the black sheep of her family. That's saying a lot when she has a step-sister who is half dragon and half human. She isn't your average ya heroine either. She is full of self loathing, anger, jealousy, resentment and just a mess!

This story is her life journey. She hasn't had an easy life. She's always been inquisitive to a fault. From the early age of six she gets in trouble for kissing her cousin/uncle because she wants to understand where babies come from. Her view is misdirected as most children's are.

Fast forward to her being sixteen and spending all of her strength to find her twin sister a husband. She would do anything for her twin. Unfortunately she screws that up too on her sister's wedding night by punching the groom's brother in the nose in an aristocratic society where women shouldn't do such things.

Tess has some intense secrets of her own and would do anything to keep them hidden, including running away after her seventeenth birthday to remake herself and change her destiny. This is just the beginning of Tess's journey through magical lands with lizard type sentient creatures and dragons. All on her way to true self discovery and fighting through her arduous past.

I would definitely recommend this novel to someone who wants to deep dive into a made up world and immerse themselves in someone else's life and problems. There are heavy topics dealt with in this book so don't go into this book thinking it will be an easy read.

One thing I found myself struggling with was Tess's alcoholism and her using it to escape her problems rather than dealing with them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this novel for a fair and honest review.

I started off LOVING this story within the Prologue. I laughed and laughed, the kind of guffaw that is embarrassing if you do so in front of others. The story simmered down to the high end of 3 stars as it went. It's weird, it's horrifying and bizarre yet familiar. A coming of age set in a religious fantasy, magical and ever so slightly steampunkish world. I as yet have not read the Seraphina series and this book gives just enough background to stand on its own. I didn't realize this until I started reading Tess of the Road.

The story is rather dark and soul-sapping at times. But it has it's moments of joy and rapture too. For the later, I kept reading. So many topics are here for discussion, parenting skills, rape, naivety, worldliness, travel and the dangers and wonders that linger there, self-realization and acceptance, sex (although no graphic details - thank you!), friendship and villainy and gender choices. But my favorite thing about the story is Rachel's word usage. It was enough to make me smile and a couple of times turn to the dictionary, but it wasn't a chore throughout, it didn't feel forced just for the sake of using the word. If that makes any sense. On that note, it was a joy to read!

I found this book hard to get into and I thought it was just me being in a slight slump but I finally looked up the author and apparently this is a spin off story? Which makes sense now because I felt like the world was already built and I felt like I should have known more about Seraphina. In short, I was lost in the beginning and I lost interest fairly quickly therefore this was a DNF. For now at least. I'm going to go back and read the others and then come back to this one.

From the beginning of this novel, I realized that it would be a completely unique story from the main novel, but still holds the the same elements of the original stories. This character is a strong young woman, dedicated to her family, and searching for her place in the world. I believe that many youths could relate to this book and find comfort in a struggle that many of us go through.

Many of you may know Hartman's prior novel Seraphina, but I, on the other hand, haven't had the chance to read it myself. Despite this, and despite both books being set in the same world, I was glad to discover that I never felt out of place or lost while reading this. Although the plot itself was rather slow and uneventful for me, and I felt as if there could have been a little more immersion into this wonderful, dragon-filled world, I especially liked Tess. I liked that Tess didn't immediately call for sympathy from the reader, but that never stopped her. She had a certain unlikeableness that just drew the reader in, and I really wanted to see where she would end up. I thought Harman did a good job with the topic of rape culture, but I also felt as if there was some grit missing, and maybe some more healing. Tess certainly earned her sympathy and heroic status, and I think she's a strong female character that younger girls would like to look up towards.

I never expected to be accepted for this ARC tbh, I'm still so surprised!! I think this was both my first big 5 ARC and the first time I've read a book the YEAR before it's published. I was also so excited for this book ever since I heard about it because I loved Seraphina. Actually, I went back and reread Seraphina and Shadow Scale after I finished this and everything makes so much more sense honestly.

I wholeheartedly loved this book; the plot, the writing, the characters, the worldbuilding, all of these were astounding. (ALSO uhhhh confirmed polyamory between some characters from Seraphina, I loved it and cried a little :'). ) Tess of the Road also covers so many issues that I personally have not seen much in the fantasy genre. It covers topics such as having to change your mindset after years of being constantly told that you aren't enough, finding yourself, and healing after past traumas. (tw: rape mention throughout the book [although implied] and this review)

After successfully getting her sister betrothed, Tess is happy to leave her family behind and live with her sister after she gets married. But she ruins it, like she ruins everything (or so she's told), so she runs away and meets her childhood friend, a quigutl. They go off on an adventure to find a Great Serpent although they run into several obstacles along the way.

Tess of the Road, at its heart, is about faith and lack thereof. While not religious, I've always been fascinated by people's faith, how they can believe in something so wholeheartedly, and this book surprised me. Tess is dealing with her own faith, so to speak, even though the world knows the truth about the Saints (spoilers for Seraphina, so I don't want to say). Her mother devoutly quotes the few saints that preached about sin; basically she polices Tess over her entire life, guilting her about her "bad" decisions. Feeling stifled, Tess rebels, which turns out badly for her, so then she feels this need to make up for her sins and be the girl her mother always wanted her to be. And when she can't stand it again? She runs away, this time resigned to the fact that she is a bad person, having basically been told that her entire life.

On the road, Tess realizes how wrong her mother was. What I loved about Rachel Hartman's writing is that she doesn't demonize religion here, even after Tess rejects all of the preachings of her childhood. She comes across a nun in a hospice, and she expects her to judge Tess for her sins. Unexpectedly, though, the nun doesn't. Instead she helps Tess recognize that, even though she's been told she's a bad person all her life, she is good; that just because she doesn't follow the teachings of a couple of saints doesn't mean that she's a sinner. This religious person helps Tess in her journey, rather than confirming her fears of being an inherently bad person, which was a surprise to me.

Along the way of coming to terms with herself, Tess also begins to actually believe in something. The Great Serpent she and her friend are seeking is wholly a quigutl belief. Despite living in a world with dragons and quigutls, the humans and dragons believe that the Great Serpents are myths and that the quigutls foolishly believe in a story. This, essentially, is the opposite of the religion of Tess's life, and her faith in this "story" again helps her to find her real self, not the person that she's been told she is.

The quigutl beliefs are a wonderful part of the worldbuilding. The stories build on the world we were introduced to in Seraphina and show us a completely different side of it. Some of the things were confusing, yet made sense, like the contradictory -utl suffix. We live in a world of oxymorons and paradoxes, and Hartman really captures this with GRAMMAR! I loved it so much; even though it was such a small detail, it adds so much to this world we journey to.

One thing I was wary of was the romance. I was really just caught off guard by it, but it helped Tess to heal after her first "romance," so I wasn't entirely put off of it. Also, the ending still left a couple of unraveled threads, so I'm honestly holding out for a sequel, but there probably won't be one. It does end nicely, albeit unexpectedly, and I'm content with where we leave off.

Tess of the Road was an incredible read; it covers topics that we so rarely get in the fantasy genre. We can all see a little of ourselves in Tess, and as we follow her along her journey on the Road, we can find ourselves healed with her. While you don't necessarily have to read Seraphina and Shadow Scale before reading this book, it helps with the background. Tess of the Road is an astonishing, breathtaking, wondrous gem of a book, one that I can't wait to read again.

It's been a long while since I've read Seraphina, and while I loved that one, the sequel wasn't as good, so I was a bit more open minded when I began this book. Since it's been so long since I've read the others, I'd forgotten nearly everything, and reading Tess' book brought a lot of it back.

You don't need to read Seraphina first, but it does a better job explaining the world and the creatures and cultures living there. Tess' book doesn't explain as much, and you'll waste time trying to figure it all out.

Tess is a great narrator. She's a mischievous overly active girl in a world where women must be seen and not heard. She's been repressed most of her life, and she's now trying to figure out who she really is, without the overbearing reign of her parental figures. So it's a self-discovery book, but the characters are well developed, and the book kept me up way into the night, so I'd say it's well-written too.

First off, readers should be aware that this isn't a "clean" book. There's a lot in here about women's bodies, child-bearing, and relations. It's not a dirty romance book, but I would suggest caution before recommending this to young children. On the other hand, this is a well-written cautionary tale of what can go wrong when people go Too Far, which is great for YA.

That aside, this is a great book. Hartman struck gold again in the great female character department. This is girl focused, and boys are the bad guys here. Like, really bad. I'm really impressed with the way Hartman depicted the position of women in a male dominated world. I love Tess' attitude, the way she never truly gives up on being herself, even when everyone around her demands otherwise.

This isn't so much a book about magic or dragons or any of the typical fantasy genres out there. I mean, it has that in the world, but this is mostly about a girl rising above abuse, figuring out who she is, and overcoming several traumatic episodes from her past. It's a fantasy alright, but it's a fresh breath of wind to the genre.

This kind of reminds me of Huckleberry Finn - it's that episodic way it's written - like every town on Tess' road is another episode, another place to relieve a memory, fix something in the present, and keep walking on.

Again, it's not the typical fantasy book, but I really recommend it.

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't like to read reviews before I've jotted down my own impressions of a book, though I usually cast my eyes rapidly down the Goodreads column, picking out words here and there. While doing that to this book, I got more whiplash than usual: superlatives in one chunk of text would be followed by "bored" "hated" "impossible" and the like.

I guess I can see that. My own impression of this book, which I finished a few days ago, and have been contemplating since, is "a glorious mess."

Things I liked: the dragon creatures and their anarchic, truly weird, customs and outlook and (rather gross) physicality.

I liked Tess's entire arc. It's an earned arc. I might have misgivings about how we got there, but when we arrived it was so satisfying, and the underlying emotional damage resonated with soul-damaging truth. (view spoiler)

I loved the writing, with its closely observed bits of human behavior, contributing to complexity. (And some really nifty turns of phrase, with only one grammar bobble in the entire thing, so rare!) Hartman writes with such rich, wild imagery, and zings of humor when one least expects it.

I loved the nuns we met later in the book, including older women with refreshingly acerb and practical outlook, while squarely placed in the given worldview. These are not twenty-first century Americans shoehorned into a fake-fantasy world with a religion specifically designed to be horrible. (Though at first it read that way.)

Which brings me to stuff I had trouble with. (view spoiler)

But these are all highly subjective reactions, which I hesitate to call flaws. Which is why I think of the book as an eminently readable, insightful, glorious mess.

Just finished "Tess of the Road" by Rachel Hartman, thanks to an ARC from Netgalley. A very interesting , enjoyable story about a young girl ,the troublemaker of her family, trying to find her way in the world. This fantasy adventure story follows Tess as she travels the world with her childhood friend, a quigutl--a subspecies of dragon, as he goes on a quest. Anxiously waiting for the next book in the series so I can go with Tess on the next part
of her adventure!

Post review to blog in December 2018: Rachel Hartman's breakout novel from 2012 was Seraphina, a phenomenal work of fantasy about a half-dragon trying to come to terms with her heritage in a world where humans and dragon have an uneasy truce. A sequel to that novel, Shadow Scale, continued Seraphina's story. Seraphina had a pair of twin younger sisters, Jeanne and Tess Dombegh, who received a few mentions. In 2018's Tess of the Road, Hartman allows Tess to come to the forefront. Despite Serahpina's rise and rank on the court, her father has lost his law license and the family has struggled. Jeanne is seen as the family's best chance to marry a suitable rich member of court, and Tess throws her energy into finding a match. Tess, however, is angry, drunk, and combative nearly all the time, and suffers crippling self doubt. Feeling trapped into a life with no opportunity, and with a bit of a push from Seraphina, Tess hits that road with little more than a new pair of sturdy boots. She quickly stumbles upon an old friend, a quigutl named Pathka whose life Tess had saved in the tunnels below her house years before. Together, they head south to search for creatures out of myth called the World Serpents. Hartman spends the first third of the book building Tess's difficult world, including her rocky relationship with a mother who blames Tess for everything. With Pathka's appearance, the novel hits it stride and Tess feels a higher purpose for perhaps the first time in her life. At first Tess steals and lies to survive, then discovers the joy of working physical jobs to get by. Ultimately, Tess of the Road is a journey into one's self, a coming of age story that shows a leap in maturity as one deals with the immense pain of the past. The question with any companion book is how important is it to have read the anchor text in order to appreciate the companion? In this case, Tess can be read as a stand-alone. Hartman provides just enough information about Seraphina's backstory and distant relationship to Tess that the major backstory gets told without being in the way. Tess herself has plenty of flashbacks to fill in her own backstory, including her history with Will, her first love and someone she's avoided thinking about to avoid both the pain of loss and the truth of what really happened. This is a definite purchase for any high school library with (or without) an active fantasy section.

In Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess sets out to instantly subvert this order of things as soon as she can, and of course has many great adventures on the way as she comes of age on the Road. 

Tess of the Road opened with a young Tess attempting to marry her twin sister Jeanne to their cousin/uncle Kenneth in an effort to discover how babies are made. It neatly transitioned into Tess, years older and (maybe) wiser, still marrying her sister off, although she's already discovered how babies are made firsthand. Then, the real story began. 

Tess promptly ruins the wedding and upsets everyone and takes the social disaster as the perfect opportunity to walk away from it all, prompted by the gift of a spectacular pair of boots. Along the Road, Tess finds new friends and old, and has a variety of adventures that unlock new facets of herself, all while pretending to anyone but who she really is, but most often, Brother Jacomo. 

Overall, I liked the concept of this novel and, the more I think about it, I both admire and love the fact that Rachel Hartman tackled some truly thorny topics in this book (many of which were made even more relevant but the constant political train wreck of current US politics). She tackles consent and rape, teenage motherhood, and the hard task of confronting your own demons, whether you created them or not. This I all found to be extremely admirable and respect the hell out of Hartman for doing it.

However, I thought the execution itself did not always live up to the great task at hand. The story often dragged on, and the plot sometimes seemed to disappear entirely as Tess meandered down her Road, only "walking on" and not doing a whole lot else. Plots would get picked up and abandoned, only to be halfway tied up many chapters later. And, during moments that could have been poignant, I felt as though the novel slipped into a bad habit of telling us that Tess had grown in that moment, rather than showing her growth as it had happened. This trend in particular was awfully distressing to me--I liked Tess and wanted to work through her revelations with her, rather than having her accomplishments listed after the fact. 

Perhaps if I had read Seraphina first, I would have enjoyed Tess more. Alas, I discovered Tess first, so here we are (although I did buy Seraphina the other day, and am looking forward to starting it!). It may also have been that this was advertised as a Teens & YA book, and wasn't quite expecting the kick in the feels that came with it. Whatever the root cause, Tess of the Road was not my favorite read, but definitely brought up some very important topics nonetheless. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the Advanced Copy! 

Tess of the Road, written by Rachel Hartman, will be published on February 27th, 2018 by Random House Books for Young Readers.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about Tess of the Road. It's not that I didn't like it. I did enjoy going back into the kingdom of Goredd that Hartman had introduced us to in Seraphina. It's just that I don't think I was expecting this book to have the focal point that it did.

The synopsis seems to focus more on the adventure of the road as she teams up with Pasha, a subspecies of dragon called a quigutl that should be familiar to those who've read Hartman's other books. However, as the book slowly reveals Tess's past, the reader comes to find out that the adventure is more about finding herself and her place in the world. Her philosophy on life becomes more about The Road, about the journey to find what is her meaning in life.

Tess had a hard life growing up. Seraphina was her perfect older step-sister, even though she was half-dragon. Jeanne, Tess's twin, was the embodiment of goodness and Tess, well, she was a child who was meant to be spanked. She was constantly finding herself in trouble and, as the story goes along, we find out just how much trouble she has gotten into throughout her seventeen years. The event that leads to her to the road involves punching a priest in the nose on her sister's wedding night, if that gives you an idea of what type of person she is.

Her tale is interwoven with her adventures on The Road and is revealed slowly, which may be boring to some, but I thought Hartman wrote beautifully and managed to reveal just enough, especially since Tess was slowly coming to terms with each event in her life as her journey progressed. She meets quite a few people on the road and, as we come to find out, she leaves an imprint on their life in some form or another.

Pasha, the quigutl, plays an important role as well. Pasha is going on their own journey, a different path than Tess's, even though they're traveling together.

Eventually, Tess's whole story is revealed in time for her to realize that she has made progress as a person from the drunk priest-punching seamstress from the beginning chapters. It makes for an interesting read, though, I wish there was a bit more fantastical elements to it. However, Hartman does create a world where the fantasy is barely brushed upon, as we see in <i>Seraphina.</i>

If you've read Seraphina, I'd recommend this book to delve back into Hartman's world. Even if you haven't, I think this book stands well enough on its own. Though, there are characters and references that hail back to the other two books, I don't think a newcomer will be too confused as this is specifically Tess's story.

Tess of the Road was not the easy breezy, fun and light read I thought it was going to be. It was packed full of sentiment, wisdom and a story that truly makes you want to sit back and reflect on it for a few days. It features a strong female heroine who is very human and easily relatable. She is a little rought around the edges, argumentative, stubborn and sometimes a bit rude but also courageous, strong willed and an all around good person. This book is light on the fantasy aspect and focuses more heavily on the road to self discovery Tess must take to find her true self in the face of so much uncertainty in her crazy world.
I had heard a lot of good things about the authors previous book, Seraphina, so I was really interested in getting my hands on this book and giving it a try. It was not at all what I expected but at the same time it exceeded those expectations.
If you want and action packed fantasy novels filled with magic and dragons, this may not be exactly what you had in mind. If you want something based in a magical world but focusing on real issues and is also thought provoking then I advise you to give this one a shot!

I actually couldn't finish reading this book.

I was so, so disappointed because I really wanted to like it, the blurb got my attention the second I read it, but as soon as I started, I lost all interest. The book itself is really slow, I got to 30% and nothing, absolutely nothing had happened, other than her horrible mother being a nasty woman.

I truly tried, I just couldn't find anything to keep me going :(

I received this ARC copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. So thank you netgalley and publishers.
I have never read from this author before but I've heard a lot about her and was told her books are amazing... with that being said, if thought this book was going to be filled with dragons, adventure, and secrets. Turns out it has a lot of walking, no adventure, and me contemplating whether I wanted to finish this book or not. In the kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies while men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whoever they want. Tess had an incident by almost ruining her sister's wedding by breaking an in-law's nose, so her parents decide they have had enough and arrange to have her admitted to a nunnery. Before it can happen, Tess  decides to run away and she happens to find a childhood friend,  who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road.  The cover is stunning and actually is what drew me originally into the story even before I found out what the book was about. I liked Tess. She always tried to do right by her family but always managed to somehow "screw things up" because, no matter how much her parents tried, she just can't fit the mold they wanted to stuff her in. I found her very relatable ♡  There was always ongoing tension between her and her parents. The entire pacing of the story was so slow! I kept wondering when the action was going to happen. It was a decent read but not my favorite, it had a lot of potential, it just didn't live up to it for me :/
I give it a 3.5 star rating..

I was lucky enough to be given an arc of this book from Netgalley and THANK GOODNESS THEY CHOSE ME!

I was actually really nervous they wouldn't. I adored the Seraphina books. Head over heels in love with Hartman's writing style, especially just the immense amount of world building that went into Seraphina so I was thrilled to see Tess of the Road was becoming a thing and OH MY GOSH I was *not* let down.

What Hartman started with world building and ended in really poignant character profiles began a new here and fed so much life into Tess of the road. The cast of characters is much smaller this time around and just the amount that we get to see of Tess' inner life was brilliant.

This is one of those books that aches. You feel it aching. You feel Tess and relate so bitterly to her even if you've never experienced her sorrows. Never once did I feel like this book's characters relationships were flat or their motivations inauthentic.

It dawned on me towards the end of the book that this was one of the realest books i'd ever had the pleasure of reading, and it was all set in a world with dragons.

I can't recommend Tess of the Road enough.